Review: ‘Dinner with the Wolves’ at Greenside @ George Street

Review: Dinner with the Wolves at Greenside @ George Street

Bread and Butter Productions’ Dinner with the Wolves tells an ever-twisting story of secrets and betrayal around the dinner table of an East London home. 4 sharply-defined characters sit, eat, argue, and await the return of the titular “Mr Wolfe” (Joe Kelly, multi-roling in order to stand in for Amir Wilson for the show I saw) from a long business trip to Japan. We also get brief flashbacks to a group holiday in Cabourg 20 years earlier, where we learn a little about the old scars making this dinner party so tense. By the end of the play’s 50-minute runtime, we discover the secrets of this group, the pharmaceutical dramas that have set them on edge, and the true natures of characters we thought we had figured out. 


The script, presumably produced by writer-producer pair Polly Hoban and Jake Butterworth (who has huge shoes to fill…), is not without its flaws, but weaves a generally intriguing labyrinth. The play’s drama-thriller-mystery elements are nothing we haven’t seen before, but there is enough worthwhile exploration of capitalistic greed, performative virtue-signalling, and class to keep the audience engaged.


Performances, also, are generally strong and confident, though some draw more interest than others. Joe Kelly shines in particular as Rob, a jaded chemist who enters this group as an outsider. Despite the small technical issue of a little too much feet-shuffling, he is constantly sympathetic and convincing, and it is Rob that we easily empathise with as he picks his way through the fake, repressed, East-London-young-professional world he has been thrust into. Jack Symonds is suitably snarky and insufferable as Fred, a business-owner-turned-charity-enthusiast (and less-than-feminist) who represents the worst of the vaguely liberal middle-class with perfect smarmy charm.


The staging of the play is a little less assured, though. Dinner-table scenes are notoriously difficult onstage (do we sit around only one side of the table so nobody is blocked?) even in end-on formations, but in thrust these problems feel even more potent. Some worthwhile effort has gone towards keeping the blocking from becoming too static (nobody stays sat in one chair for too long, thankfully) but it could still be more tightly-choreographed. Moments of actors bearing their backs to the audience or awkwardly navigating around the set design’s central table contribute to an unignorable but not damning impression: this all feels quite student-y.


Overall, Dinner with the Wolves is an engaging and competent drama, though it could do with a little more polish in its direction. Greater rehearsal time could help to iron the creases out of what is already a worthwhile watch. 


7/10

 

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